1 trash truck to Pontiac IL

... spending the night at Cedar Rapids IA

Up without the alarm, no breakfast for me. Still too stuffed from yesterday noon.

We decide to pass on the two TX trips, one is gone shortly after 8 AM so we can not reconsider. We sit and watch the load board from 7 AM until about 8:30. Then I get a call from the local dispatcher.

They want to know if I will be available at the end of this week. 'No,' I say, 'I am trying to get out of town now.' Well they also have one for now, Pontiac IL. I tell him we will call him back.

Our car needs to get in the shop so we need to get a rental car for this trip. BB can not ride with on this one, so it is a one way from here to ??? We pick Rockford IL but we can change it. It takes a longer to make sure everything will work that just deciding we want the trip.

And we are not ready to go. We tell them we will be there in a couple of hours.

I do take time to call on some OH orders. They pay really good I find out, but they need 48 hours notice to pick up ... Hmm ... we are not supposed to be able to call on any trips more than 24 hours before we pick them up ???

When we get there, a different dispatcher has another local trip for me. Because of all the rental car and other issues I make sure to clear it with BB before saying yes ... it will slow us down by a half hour but it is right on our way.

After I picked up the first paperwork, then we go to pick up the rental car ... then to the shop to drop our car off ... then to home to pick up our luggage ... then back to the local office to pick up the local move. It has a check engine icon on and is going to the shop.

I end up talking to all the dispatchers today. I do let the tanker dispatcher know that I will do the trips to Gary IN. And then I see the bus dispatcher and we talk a little. Now they are done with the Canadian trips and are working on Seattle buses. Actually Anchorage buses but we are only taking them to Seattle where they will be put on a ship.

Without them telling me directly, I found out why they like to use me and BB on some of these trips. One of the dispatchers had to drive the drivers to the shipper recently. Not enough shuttle drivers.

2nd stop is the drop, Peterbilt in South St Paul. They knew nothing about it so it took a minute or two longer than I had planned.

Somewhere between that drop and the next pickup, BB looks at the weather. STORM. We had only looked at the weather going south to TX. This trip was not planned. So BB is looking at all the cities and times and roads and wishes we had not taken this trip without looking at the weather.

... AND about an hour after we agreed to take this trip, our other carrier put out two pickups going to WY ... away from all this weather. And we'd both be driving, for pay.

2nd stop is the shipper in Dodge Center. We look at all the trucks and it is the last one in the last row. It is usually the row I start on, but my paperwork has the drop as a different name than what is on the side of the truck ... so I picked a different row.

Truck checks good, but it has to be scaled.

3rd stop is the Kwik Trip in Kasson for fuel and scale. Scale weight is good.

BB looks at all the weather sites again and besides the 5-8 inches of snow expected north of Madison, I-90 is closed because of a crash. 18 mile detour around the crash. So I call dispatch, they are on break so I talk to the head dispatcher. The other route will only add 20 extra miles and keep us moving.

Forecast is that we will wake up to slushy snow this way also but we should skirt the worst of the storm.

4th stop is the Kwik Trip in New London just to keep in contact and plan.

5th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Cedar Rapids. It is 6:30 and it doesn't look like we will gain anything by driving later. Lot is already full so I get to park on the street. I do check before leaving it there.

For food we head to Pepper Jax. Today we split a sandwich. I realize now that the only thing I have drank all day was the last swallow of juice I hadn't finished with my pills last night. Opps. Not the healthiest.

Load board

US - 229

IA - 5/2

MN - 4

WI - 1

Nothing on the load board that we 'must do.' There is one in WI going back home. And local dispatch still wants me to do the trip they had called last week on. Shipper of the 2nd truck is running behind so it keeps getting pushed back.